


A Memory of Bubbles

by rainstormcolors



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Implied Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstormcolors/pseuds/rainstormcolors
Summary: A pair of ten minute flash fics based on the Kaiba brothers.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	A Memory of Bubbles

He answered the problems given to him with ease. Teaching sessions rarely filled their entire block because he was able to work through the day’s exercises so briskly, with such beyond-his-years dexterity. He was then left to play in some kind of recreational room or permitted to visit the yard surrounding the manor. Sometimes one of the servants would take him out shopping for groceries or to visit the park.

He only seemed to see his father at dinnertime. He only seemed to see his brother at dinnertime. His genius was not the one their father cared about with his firm cold presence. He and his brother ate quietly, quickly as Gozaburo stated his plans if he had them or otherwise the room was silent.

After a certain time it seemed like his brother could no longer look at him.

Mokuba began to deliberately answer the questions on his worksheets wrong. It didn’t matter. There were times he spotted his brother wandering through the hallway like a ghost. There were the times he heard his brother shouting, screaming through the walls. Was this the price of their genius?

\- - - - - -

“You cut the straw like this.”

It was hardly there; hardly a memory at all anymore. But Seto had clumsily sliced and frayed the end of a straw so that it opened like flower petals, dipped the tip into watery soap, and blew a stand of rainbow bubbles, glistening in sunshine. And he passed the straw over to Mokuba, so that Mokuba could create rainbow bubbles too.

Inside Seto’s office, Seto stared over the floating hologram monitors, shifting numbers as needed over them. Mokuba sat with an empty coffee cup and stared out at the city skyline, glowing like colorful embers into a copper-stained sky. Mokuba stood.

“Did you want me to get you a coffee too, while I’m up?”

“I’m alright,” Seto said.

But Mokuba brought back two cups regardless. He set the second one on Seto’s desk.

“Just in case,” Mokuba said.

Seto had to take a second glance to take in the cup Mokuba had left for him. “Thanks,” he said.

Mokuba’s own cup had a straw inside it, and Mokuba put his lips to it and blew so that the liquid sizzled. And sunshine flared in all the windows of the city, bright as could be.


End file.
